


unlike lovers

by V_fics



Series: I Can't Believe It's Not Wincest! [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Episode: s11e20 Don't Call Me Shurley, Episode: s11e23 Alpha and Omega, Episode: s12e02 Mamma Mia, Fix-It, Gen, POV Mary Winchester on Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Queerplatonic Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, gencest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_fics/pseuds/V_fics
Summary: Maybe it’d be easier if they were like that after all, if there were some physical attraction that made Sam want to grab Dean by the shoulders and never let go, if all Sam had to do is jump right in and say ‘I want to marry you’, and Dean would immediately understand all the things that came with it.But they’re not, and honestly it’s part of the problem, because how can you say ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you and only you, like a lover would’, without all the connotations of a long-term relationship? It’s unconventional.Then again, nothing in their lives is conventional.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: I Can't Believe It's Not Wincest! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127897
Comments: 11
Kudos: 59





	unlike lovers

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the old (debunked) [theory that dean's classic era ring used to belong to mary](http://supernaturalwiki.com/Dean%27s_Ring).

Sam is desensitised to many things, mostly violent things, always strange things, but somehow, after well over a decade, he’s still surprised when someone glances between him and Dean and get that look in their eye, then smile—either tightly polite or blindingly cheery or tentatively earnest, depending—and say ‘your partner’ with an emphasis that has nothing to do with their Fed suits.

It used to bother him, hell it used to send him back to the times a school counsellor would sit him down in a brightly lit office with pamphlets on the wall and ask about the bruises on his neck and his suspiciously scattered school transcripts. It used to bother Dean too, with all the military machismo he emulated from their father, but now Sam’s halfway through his thirties and Dean’s rounding the corner to forty and they’ve been through Heaven and Hell and Purgatory and soullessness and demonhood and so when Dean notices those lightbulb moments, he rolls his eyes and lets it go, or if he’s in the mood to be a nuisance, rolls _with_ it and spends the rest of the hunt calling Sam increasingly mushy pet names that Sam will never _ever_ admit to liking.

They’re not like that and Sam knows it in his heart, which is why when the only motel room left has just one king-sized bed, and Dean jokes that they could totally pretend to be married, Sam doesn’t say that they don’t actually need to lie about how it feels to live together and instead heartily nitpicks the details of their fake backstory.

And so when Sam wakes up with his head on Dean’s chest and Dean’s fingers in his hair and he realises, hm, maybe getting married to his brother wouldn’t be so bad, the thought of commitment beyond circumstance, beyond convenience, is like missing the step on a curb, because wasn't that _obvious?_

And when he untangles himself from Dean as stealthily as he can, and Dean’s arms search for him in the absence and settle around the other pillow instead, Sam crushes down that twinge of longing and heads for the bathroom.

Marriage, he thinks, turning on the faucet. Huh.

The thing is, while his brother may have been flirting his way across the continental United States for decades, Dean would never be able to bring himself to leave hunting. Sam’s brother is a good man, he has to save people, has to intervene where he can. Sam doesn’t think Dean could ever sit by idly and live a normal life if he could be on the road helping others, and so long as Dean was doing that, Sam doesn’t think he could stop either. They’ve settled into each other’s pockets out of choice now, not from the necessity of growing up. This is his life, with Dean.

But maybe that’s just it, he thinks, when he casually drops how he and his ‘husband’ used to sneak out at night and hang out at the park together to a cautious witness. There’s an element of choice in the possessive noun that’s missing from ‘my _brother_ ’ that fills his heart with warmth. 

And it’s just a little funny to see Dean choke on his water.

“You know,” Dean says as they clear the front porch, witness testimony in hand and a damp patch on his right sleeve, “if you’re gonna pull the whole ‘married’ thing, you could at least wear an actual ring.”

“I’m on the clock and don’t want to lose it chasing down a suspect,” Sam answers simply. “But it could help, don’t you think? Making people think you know the fear of loss?”

Dean’s face scrunches up across the roof of the car. “Yeah sure, Romeo, let's go put a ring on it.”

Sam laughs, slides into shotgun as always, and quashes the longing again.

Maybe it’d be easier if they were like _that_ after all, if there were some physical attraction that made Sam want to grab Dean by the shoulders and never let go, if all Sam had to do is jump right in and say ‘I want to marry you’, and Dean would immediately understand all the things that came with it.

But they’re not, and honestly it’s part of the problem, because how can you say ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you and only you, like a lover would’, without all the connotations of a long-term relationship? It’s unconventional. 

Then again, nothing in their lives is conventional. 

Yet, even though Sam knows how it feels to be courted by an entity so certain of their absolute power that your consent is guaranteed to them, there’s still that growing jealousy when Dean relays that he and Amara have a connection, when he says she kissed him and spared him, when Dean’s greatest desire is God’s sister, and when Amara’s fog infects him, all that insecurity spills out like sludge, bitter and viscous. 

The thing the Darkness can give, that Dean would want, that Sam never can. 

_You were going to choose Amara over me._

But fears aren’t always rational and Dean’s the one leaning over him, grabbing at his tainted arms, and telling him he’s not leaving, even if Sam kills him, he’s not leaving, and if Sam could focus he’d feel his brother pressing his lips to Sam’s temple. There’s so much noise, so much shouting, he thinks Dean’s voice is among them. Distantly, there’s a comfort to the chaos.

He’s going to die and Dean loves him.

The fog clears.

He doesn’t need a symbol to know how he feels about his brother. He _has_ his brother. But he still remembers how it felt, getting hit in the face when he forgot to tuck it under his shirt during a fight, taking a shower around the cord, rolling over in bed and yelping when the charm got pinned between his skin and the mattress, waking up with the string indented into his shoulder. He thought, walking around during the Apocalypse without it, that he’d miss it and that he’d crave its return, but then they died and went to Heaven and it felt like everything Sam ever wanted in his perfect Heaven had nothing to do with Dean.

And then the rest of their lives happened.

When Sam finally notices him, he jumps up from Dean’s bed, his eyes big and watery and sad, Dean’s discarded jacket pocket turned out beside him. His little brother has the amulet’s cord wound tightly in shaking hand, pressed to his heart like Dean’s going to rip it from his fingers and throw it out again. His thumb digs into the edge of the string and Sam answers the question Dean hasn’t even had the time to ask.

“I didn’t know if you’d want it back after… so I kept it.”

Dean doesn’t need a symbol. He already knows, but Sam blinks steadily and clears his throat, eyes drifting down, shoulders curling in, and his voice breaks in its casual tone.

“It was supposed to be here, in the Bunker—in my room. Chuck must have moved it.”

When Sam raises his arm and holds the pendant aloft, it swings between them like a pendulum, deciding its loyalty, and suddenly the space between the door and the bed is just too damn much. 

Heaven and Zachariah and the Apocalypse feel like an eternity ago. They’ve fought and fought and fought and some of it was right and some of it was wrong and most of it was stupid and yet, somehow, they’re still here, and Sam still—still is. _Here_.

The end of the string catches in the curve between his thumb and his index, the charm in his palm, and Dean holds tight, lets the thread connect them, then pulls Sam into a one-armed hug, their hands crushed between their chests. Sam heaves, a sob in Dean’s shoulder, and Dean leans up on his toes, just enough, to hug him like he’s still little. Their hearts beat against their hands and maybe they’re in sync, maybe they’re not, but they’re _together_. 

He doesn’t need a symbol to know, but he _wants_ one.

Sam must want this too, because when Dean finds the other end of the string and squeezes their fingers together and asks, voice shattering, “Marry me, Sammy,” Sam doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t let go, doesn’t even grimace or ask in exactly _what_ sense Dean means that very specific question, because he knows, they both know, and that’s all they need.

“You never did get me a ring for cover stories.”

They’re too close to see each other’s faces, but Dean can feel the puff of laughter against his ear and feel the smile on Sam’s face.

“Something old,” he squeezes Sam’s hand, “something new,” he turns his head and kisses the side of Sam’s temple. “We have a borrowed ring.”

“We do?”

“Yeah. My old ring. That silver one.”

“I didn’t know you still had it.”

Sam’s head turns and their noses brush.

“Well it’s only fair, I wear the amulet you gave me, you wear my ring.”

Sam laughs against Dean’s neck. The amulet is warm between their hands.

Yeah, Dean thinks, running a hand through Sam’s hair. This is it.

They never get married, even though God Himself offers to officiate, because things keep happening and Sam refuses to be the fastest widow in human history. Instead they stand, too far apart, while Dean’s skin pulsates with souls and the silver ring around Sam’s finger feels like a restraint.

“Let me go with you.”

“You can’t.”

Dean’s hands close into fists and open again and close again. He’s saving the universe because he’s the only one who can, but if he’s going to die saving the world, Sam deserves to live in it. His fingers curl around the cord of the amulet.

“Don’t.” 

Sam closes the space, touches the charm with a hand, feels the horns click against the silver ring, newly polished and still worn with age.

They hug and Dean almost, almost changes his mind. They can’t be parted by death if they die together.

But their foreheads touch and Sam’s crying quietly and Dean can’t take him with him.

There’s no final declaration of love, just a kiss to his little brother’s forehead and then—

And then he lives, but he’s not alone.

He should be kinder. Everything in his head is telling him to be kinder, be gentler, because his mother just came back from the dead, and in a Heaven of isolated memories she may as well have directly time travelled from 1983 to 2016, but then there’s blood on the bunker floor, and his— _Sam’s_ ring rolled under the table, and all kindness goes out the window because someone took his brother and his mother’s shellshock is the least of his concerns. 

He can feel Sam’s ring, threaded over the amulet, against his bare chest, tucked under his shirt, as he twists the veterinarian’s arm behind his back and slams him over the desk. There’s blood rushing in his ears and he wants to see it spill. 

Distantly, Cas’ voice is calm, “We should take a walk, Mary.”

The man gives them everything before Dean even breaks skin.

Dean resembles his grandfather. Or perhaps he’s even worse. Mary isn’t sure.

The angel Castiel is the only one who talks to her directly. He’s reticent, though she supposes that could be how angels are, but Dean is completely silent. There’s a driving rage behind every move, one she hasn’t seen since she officially left hunting, the rage that drives most hunters she knew.

It’s worse because they’re human. The civilian Dean threatened to cut open was human, flawed but human. The woman who hits their car and comes at them with brass knuckles that manage to wind even an angel is human, but Dean—

The man who shares her son’s name doesn’t seem human, not when forgoes shooting their assailant to beat her against the side of her truck, fists bloody. Not when he draws his knife and starts slicing at skin so carefully, like chopping fruit, like he’s done this before. Not when Castiel intervenes, presses a hand to the woman’s face and then says, “Sam’s in Aldrich, Missouri,” and Dean pulls the knife out, lets the hitwoman crumple to the ground, shaking from pain, and finally draws his gun at her head.

“Dean!”

The man doesn’t take his eyes off his prey, but if he did, Mary doesn’t think she’d see the eyes of her son looking back at her. She clears her throat. She’s shaking from adrenaline the way she hasn’t felt in years. Hunting monsters is one thing, but this... This is worse.

“We already know where Sam is,” she says, trying to find the voice she used just days ago to tell Dean why they couldn’t let Sam sleep next to him at night. “You don’t have to kill her.”

Dean’s jaw tightens. Mary knows the vengeful anger of a hunter well, but there’s something in Dean’s posture, his demeanour, and it doesn’t feel like vengeance anymore.

Castiel resolves the issue by touching the side of the woman’s head again, and she slumps over, still. He picks her up without any effort, and heads back to the Impala.

“She’s just unconscious,” Castiel says, as Dean holsters his weapons again and pops open the trunk. “We’ll deal with her once we find Sam.”

There’s something about fitting a person in the back of John’s car that makes Mary want to throw up.

“Cas, take Mom back to the bunker. I’ll get Sam.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go alone.”

“I’ll be fine. Take the Brit’s truck and head back. I can handle this on my own.”

Dean finally meets her eyes. She can’t see her little boy on the face of this man, not even if all this fury and sadism derives from protectiveness. But there is something familiar in his dismissiveness. 

“No. I’m going with you.”

Those eyes are still a stranger’s eyes, and the man with her son’s name says, “Okay.”

He doesn’t talk to her for the rest of the drive.

Real-pain is different to Hell-pain, but Sam's soul is shattered already and real-pain only hurts the way a paper cut hurts.

Dean’s dead, his soul ripped apart, so even if Sam were to enter Heaven, he’d be alone, like all those people who don’t have soulmates, stuck in a mindless rerun of memories. He might not even get to see Dean in them.

So he’s dying, Sam thinks, his back against the doorway. Lady Bevell’s stopped crying in the cellar. He’s dying but he’s free, and that has to count for something. He should find a phone, call Cas, wherever he is, get armed and get out before someone comes looking, but his body’s only human and the adrenaline is wearing off.

“Sam? Sam!”

Hands are on his face, fingers in his hair, a familiar touch again, but it’s not possible, it’s not supposed to be possible. The room is hazy and Dean’s there, holding onto him, talking to him, and Sam can barely make out half of the words. He thinks he can hear Cas too.

“Not... not real.”

“I’m real, Sammy,” Dean pushes the hair out of his eyes. “Look at me. Look at this.”

Something presses into his left hand. Two points, but not sharp enough to cut. He blinks and the images finally register in his memory. The amulet, and Dean’s ring. He’d dropped it back at the Bunker. He was going to put it on a chain necklace, wear it the way Dean wore the amulet.

Then he got shot. 

“You’re alive,” Dean says. His grip loosens and he tangles a hand into Sam’s hair and presses their heads together. “We’re alive.”

“I thought—thought Amara—”

“It’s a long story, but she and Chuck made up, I’m here. I’m real. I’m not leaving you, and you don’t get to leave me either, okay?”

Sam closes his fingers in the fabric of Dean’s jacket and buries his face into the shoulder, and for the first time since Chuck snapped Dean away to die, he breathes easy.

The tingling warmth of healing magic touches his shoulder, and Sam pulls his head away.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas’ eyes are pained, but relieved. “Sam.”

He can’t help but smile, just a little, and push his head into Dean’s shoulder again and whisper, “Guess you gotta marry me after all, right?”

“Obviously, I’m stuck with you.”

Dean laughs, warm and gentle, and Sam thinks maybe he’d be happy if he died here right now. 

“Sammy,” Dean pulls back slightly, his eyes hesitant, “There’s someone you have to see.”

He looks past Dean and Cas, and there’s a woman standing by the doorway, with a face he’s seen in photographs and impersonations and dreams.

The reunion is cut short when Castiel turns his entire body back towards the front of the house and alerts them to a human presence. Dean straightens, jaw clenching, and gives the angel a directed, silent thought, before saying out loud, “Cas, stick with Sam.”

He nods to Mom, who rolls her shoulders and draws her own gun, rapidly compartmentalising, but Sam stares like he wants to object. Dean spares a moment to touch his face with a free hand.

“Just stay here, okay?”

Sam blinks, unappeased, but nods and bumps his healed shoulder to Dean's. It's enough. 

There's another car out front, and Dean's starting to get a knee-jerk reaction to well-dressed classy bastards, but there's a weight lifted from his chest, the edge taken off from the day's events, and he snarks a greeting the way he usually would. 

“I apologise for Ms. Bevell’s actions,” Mister British Suit-and-Tie all but confirms it. “Mick Davies. I was sent here to intervene, although I see I might be too late. I assure you, she will face consequences in London.”

Dean considers shooting him where he stands. 

“Yeah, I don’t think your diplomatic immunity bullshit applies here.”

“We really do want to work with you, Mr. Winchester.”

“Not interested.”

The door opens and Mom flinches, because Castiel is carrying the limp body of a woman, dressed in prim but stained clothes. He drops the body some feet away from Mick, then steps back. Mick betrays nothing, and kneels down to check her pulse.

Dean’s gun points downwards to her head. He can already imagine it, viscera splattering over the man’s perfect suit, the lady’s brain matter on his hands and face. A universal message. Quick, dirty, simple. Don’t mess with him.

“Dean.”

He doesn’t turn back. Mick is frozen, on a knee, looking up at the barrel with a decided calm. Sam’s footfalls are muted and Dean wants to tell him to get back inside, not to push himself, but then his brother’s hovering over his shoulder, and his fingers brush against Dean’s arm. Dean doesn’t waver.

“She shot you in the shoulder, right?” 

An eye for an eye. Bullet for a bullet. If they had the time Dean would take a blowtorch to the lady’s foot too. It’s the least these British assholes deserve. But Sam sighs, close enough that his breath tickles Dean’s ear, and so the safety clicks back on. 

He holsters the gun, strides over to the Impala’s trunk and dumps the tied up, still-breathing body of Bevell’s henchwoman on the ground.

“Get lost.” he tells Mick. 

Mick smiles politely, and does just that.

They clear out the safe house within an hour, then set a rune to tear it down for good measure. Their mother takes Watt’s truck with Cas, and it’s probably for the best. Dean’s fidgeting with his hands the way he does when he hasn’t killed something in a while, wound tight and flighty, and Sam shelves his urge to look at Bevell’s cloned hard drive before all those strings in Dean snap.

“Dean, pull over.”

Dean gets out faster than Sam does. He’s barely out of shotgun before his brother’s shoving him up against the Impala and crushing him into his arms. Dean’s breathing like they only just found each other, and Sam just tucks his head into his shoulder and presses his fingertips into Dean’s back until everything unwinds.

“If I ever see those Brits again—”

“We can deal with it later.” Sam soothes, “I’m here. I’m safe. You found me.”

Dean’s shaking, palms pressed up against Sam’s collar like he needs to feel Sam’s heartbeat under his fingers. Everything in the past twenty-four hours is crashing down and Sam’s the only one who can catch them both.

“I’d kill them, I’d rip them apart, I—”

He pulls back to cup the side of Dean’s face. His brother’s eyes are watery. He presses a kiss to Dean’s forehead. 

“I know.” he says. “I know.”

Dean’s hands run over Sam’s jaw and he sighs. Their foreheads bump together and it’s enough. They’re enough. 

Dean untucks the amulet from under his shirt. The old silver ring is still looped over the string, clinking next to the pendant. Dean slides it off and holds them both in his hand.

“Still on for it?” he asks, ring between his thumb and index.

Sam smiles, fingers squeezing around Dean’s.

“I’m not arguing,” Sam says softly. “I’m not. But Mom…”

“She doesn’t have to get it,” Dean says. “This is between us. It’d still be between us even if we didn’t have—” He opens his palm. 

Sam finds the amulet’s string and draws it out over Dean’s head. The charm lands on his chest, where it belongs. 

“Just between us,” Sam says.

Dean wasn’t really expecting to get married on the side of the road, but Sam’s smiling at him, fond and adoring, the Impala counts as a witness in their hearts, and it’s all he needs. Sam’s breath hitches when he slides the ring back into place, then he laughs with so much warmth in him when Dean brings his hand up and presses his lips to Sam’s palm.

“Just you and me.”

Sam cups his face and Dean’s smiling so wide it might just ache.

“Yeah,” Sam says, “Just us.”

It counts as a kiss to them, when Sam tilts his head down and Dean presses his lips to his little brother’s forehead, Sam’s hair between his fingers, the amulet between their chests. 

Perfect.

Truthfully, it takes Mary a while to notice it. Her eyes are always drawn to her children’s grown faces, trying to find any familiarity in them. They’re both aged, it’s difficult to see the resemblance in men as tall as her own father and equally as guarded.

They’re wrapping up recon on a case together when Sam unbuttons his Fed jacket to sit down next to her at a diner, and the sunlight catches in the act. 

Mary nearly inhales her coffee, because sitting on Sam’s left hand is _her_ ring. 

One of them, in any case. One of the few things she took with her from her family, just an ordinary silver band that looks even more beaten down and scraped up after thirty-odd years. 

“Everything okay?”

She clears her throat, eyes pivoting between Sam’s hand, perched on the edge of the counter, and his eyes, worried. 

“That ring,” she says, then coughs again. “Isn’t that one of mine?”

Sam blinks, looks down at the band and chuckles. His cheeks pink and he tangles his fingers together and turns the silver nervously. 

“Uh, yeah. Dean said it was one of the few things we got out from the fire.”

“Why are you wearing it?” is what she says out loud, but she doesn’t add, ‘like you’re married’. 

Sam opens his mouth, then closes it. Twists the metal again.

“Well, the vic was married, sometimes it helps a witness to think you’re in the same boat.”

He smiles, sheepish, and she sees Dean, hand in the cookie jar, abashed at getting caught, because there’s not much that connects Sam the thirty-four year old man with Sam the six-month old infant. Even his eye colour has changed from watery blue to something hazel. 

His smile falls and he seizes the ring with a thumb and forefinger. 

“Do you want it back?”

“No,” she says quickly. It’s not hers anymore. “It’s not--sentimental. It’s just a normal ring.”

Sam’s eyes grow soft, but his hands come apart and the ring is still in place. 

“You kept it even when you left your parents.”

“Yeah, well,” it’s her turn to be sheepish. “It’s silver. It’s an easy way to tell if the Johnstons down the street are secretly werewolves or something.”

Sam chuckles, then waves down the passing bartender to ask for a coffee. The ring glints in the light, ordinary and unexceptional. 

The ring disappears from Sam’s hand the next day, and finds itself threaded through a chain, the only sign of its presence is the circular lump under Sam’s shirts. 

It’s pragmatic, she thinks, but it still bothers her, when she takes her own wedding ring and does the same. It’s not the same. 

Sam’s dressed down to a single layer for dinner, and Dean’s eyes seem to linger just a little too long on Sam’s chest, where the ring dangles over his shirt, before he smiles, cracks a joke about Sam’s eating habits, and ruffles his brother’s hair the way an older brother should. Sam rolls his eyes, smooths his hair back down, but when Dean brushes past his shoulder towards the kitchen, there’s only fondness in both of their smiles.

It can’t be the same, Mary thinks. It can’t be. 

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhh. i'm not really happy with this but i'm also bored so. here have it. maybe i'll edit it to be more in-character one day. 
> 
> i didn't get to insert this bit but does anyone else just think about how dean/amara was literally called out as amara having a brother complex? and how dean identifies this because of himself and sam? spn is a show. totally gonna tackle this one day.


End file.
